Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Staunton, August 1 – Russian officials
say the declining number of working-age Russians may limit the country’s
economic possibilities, but experts note the pro-natalist policies Vladimir
Putin has promoted have increased fertility rates among non-Russians while
doing little to stop them from falling among ethnic Russians, a pattern that is
making Russia ever less Russian.

Official concern about the size of
the work force is reflected, Mariya Bezchastnaya of Svobodnaya pressa says, in both the decision of the Russian Central
Bank to keep interest rates high and in a report by the economic development
ministry about the current state of the Russian economy (svpressa.ru/economy/article/178020/).

The Central Bank
noted that “one of the limiting factors” of Russia’s economic growth is the
size of the labor market “where already are being observed signs of a shortage
of cadres in particular segments.” To the extent they grow or spread, that will
present real problems (cbr.ru/press/keypr/).

Both agencies stress that “compensation
is [as a result] beginning to grow more rapidly than productivity,” something that
will ultimately lead to inflation unless worker productivity goes up.If economists focus on this danger,
demographers argue that “potential inflation is far from the main problem.”

Igor Beloborodov, the direction of
the Independent Institute of the Family and Demography, argues that the growing
shortage of workers not only threatens economic growth but will make it
impossible for Russia to “maintain its geopolitical position and respected
status in the international arena” not immediately but within a few years.

Frightened by this threat, he
continues, many in Moscow are inclined to open the gates to far more
gastarbeiters from Central Asia. But that is “an anti-Russian approach” because
“in this way we will simply wreck the labor market as a result of dumping” and
allow for the emergence of “ethnic monopolies on work places. This is a serious
issue for reflection.”

“More than that,” Beloborodov says, “such
an approach will lead directly to the collapse of the country and to ethnic revolutions.
If there were causes for a Maidan in Ukraine, including the weakness of the authorities
and corruption, then with us, one of these threats is the ethnic factor – and therefore
one must approach the issue of migration very carefully.”

Immigration must be structured so as
to correspond with the existing ethnic balance in the country rather than allowing
it to undermine that balance, the demographer says.The same thing is true regarding pro-natal
policies.Those are needed to boost the birthrate
and produce more workers, but they too must take the ethnic factor into
account.

Unfortunately, Beloborodov says,
that hasn’t always been the case. The pro-natal policies of the government have
boosted birthrates overall but not evenly across the country. In predominantly
ethnic Russian regions with low birthrates now, these policies have done little
or nothing.

But “in non-Russian republics and
regions of compact settlement of representatives of other indigenous peoples of
Russia,” these policies have boosted fertility rates. If that trend continues, “it
will promote the deformation of the existing demographic situation in our
country.”

“The share of the ethnic Russian and
Slavic population will fall, and the existing relationship of various
nationalities will be deformed.” Thus, any policy in this area must take
ethnicity into consideration, and different approaches should be used in different
regions to ensure that deformations don’t take place.

But if “revolutionary” steps aren’t
taken in this area now, Beloborodov says, “we will experience the most serious
problems” in the decade between 2040 and 2050.